Enable the use of other languages in your Office programs

You can change the editing, display, ScreenTip, and Help languages of your Microsoft Office programs so that they are different languages. The languages available depend on the language version of Microsoft Office and any additional language pack, language interface pack, or ScreenTip languages that are installed on your computer. If the proofing tools, display or Help language that you want is not available, you might need to obtain and install a language pack or language interface pack. For more information, see Do I need a language pack or language interface pack?.

What do you want to do?

Set the default editing language

The editing language consists of the keyboard layout and proofing tools for that language. The proofing tools include language-specific features, such as dictionaries for spelling and grammar checking, or paragraph direction buttons.

Open a Microsoft Office program, such as Word.

Click File > Options > Language.

In the Set the Office Language Preferences dialog box, under Choose Editing Languages, select the editing language that you want to use, click the name of the language that you want to be the default language, click Set as Default.

After you change the default editing language, you need to close all your Office programs, and then open them again for the change to take effect.

Notes

After you change the default language, you need to close all Office programs, and then open them again for the change to take effect.

If your computer is not properly configured for the editing language that you have added, Not enabled or Not installed may appear in the Keyboard Layout or Proofing columns. If you see either of these alerts, read What does Not enabled or Not installed mean?

To enable language-specific options, such as the Hangul Hanja Conversion and Enclose Characters buttons, you must enable an editing language that includes those options.

Are your proofing tools "Not installed"?

If your language version of Office doesn't include the proofing tools for the language that you want, you might need to obtain a language pack or language interface pack.

Set the default display and Help language

The display and Help languages are the languages used in Office for display elements, such as menu items, commands, and tabs in addition to the Help file display language.

Open a Microsoft Office program, such as Word.

Click File > Options > Language.

In the Set the Office Language Preferences dialog box, under Choose Display and Help Languages, select the language that you want to use.

Set the order of the display and Help languages

The order of the languages in the display and Help lists is the order that the languages are used by Microsoft Office. For example, if your display language order is Spanish <default>, German, and Japanese, and the Spanish language tools are removed from your computer, German becomes your default display language.

You can have the display and Help languages match the language of your operating system, or you can have a different language for your operating system, display, and Help.

Which display language is being used for which Office program?

If you use multiple languages and have customized Office so that it fits the way that you want to work, you can survey all of the Office programs to see which language is the default display language for each.

In the Set the Office Language Preferences dialog box, under Choose Display and Help languages, click View display languages installed for each Microsoft Office program.

Choose your ScreenTip language in Office

ScreenTips are small pop-up windows that provide brief, context-sensitive help when you rest the pointer on a display element, such as a button, tab, dialog box control, or menu. Setting the ScreenTip language in one Office program sets it for all of the Office programs that you have installed.

Note This feature is only available for the following Office programs: Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Visio, and Word.

If the language that you want is not listed, you might need to add more language services. Click How do I get more ScreenTip languages from Office.com?, and then follow the download and installation instructions.

After you install a new ScreenTip language, it becomes your default ScreenTip language.